‘She has an insatiable curiosity about people. I have to take a lot of care not to let slip my secrets.’

He nodded. Too right, he thought.

‘That was really good, Lar. Where did you learn to cook?’

‘Caitlin and I went at it together. We bought books and experimented. Nearly poisoned ourselves several times. I haven’t done any since. Eat out of tins and Marks & Spencer. It doesn’t matter any more. All I have to do is keep alive. I suppose.’

‘Might as well take some pleasure as well. Silly not to really.’ She leant across the table and touched his arm. Her hand swooped quickly, like a bird, and just grazed the cuff of his shirt and was away again. ‘It’s not disloyalty to begin to find pleasures again.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Maybe not. I’m quite sensible though, in spite of all appearances to the contrary.’

‘I never said you weren’t.’

‘I know you didn’t. Tell me some more about Caitlin.’

He looked uneasy.

‘I don’t mean about her death. Nothing like that. The living person – I’d like to know about her.’ She smiled at him, a shadow of her mother’s smile. ‘Please.’

‘I have all her paintings at home, stacked round the wall of her studio – well, it’s a shed really, down at the bottom of the garden. We put in electricity and running water and I did a bit of insulation. She preferred to work there than in the house. She could ignore the telephone, people coming to the door, me. “I am going to the office,” she used to say, and then she’d run out of the kitchen door and down the garden. There was this big window looking out over the sea. Cold north light, like a searchlight. You can’t hide anything with a cold north light.’

He looked anxious.

‘I hope they’re all right – the pictures, not damp or anything. I have neglected them. I haven’t even looked at them for ages. I couldn’t bear to. I ought to have checked on the roof and things like that. It’s quite exposed, just there almost on the edge.’ He smiled at her. ‘The way you like to be. She liked that too.’

‘I’m sure they’ll be all right. But you want to take them out of there, hang them on your walls. That’s what pictures are for. Are they good? Sorry, I hope that’s not a rude question to ask.’

‘To be honest, I don’t know. I think so, but I don’t know. She had been working very hard and was about to have a one-woman show when …’

He took an orange from the bowl on the table and dug his thumbnail into it. An aromatic jet shot out of the fruit onto his sleeve.